Review on Effectiveness of Progressive Muscle Relaxation on Stress and Anxiety

Stress and anxiety are the most common psychiatric disorders in the most societies, including Iran. The use of non-pharmacological nursing interventions in this field is very important. One of these non-pharmacological methods is progressive muscle relaxation. This study aimed to evaluate and summarize the results of studies on the effect of progressive muscle relaxation on patients’ stress and anxiety.

In this review study, articles published between 2006 to 2021 were reviewed. A comprehensive search in both Persian and English using the keywords such as “stress”, “anxiety”, “progressive muscle relaxation”, “non-pharmacological interventions” in the electronic databases of the SID, Magiran, IranMedex, PubMed, Science Direct, Elsevier, ProQuest, and Google Scholar search engine was conducted. A total of 1269 articles were found, which were omitted based on the title and abstract, and 19 articles were extracted, reviewed and summarized. Finally, 194 articles were found that 20 articles were extracted, reviewed, and summarized.

The results showed that progressive muscle relaxation intervention reduces stress and anxiety in patients with Covid-19, multiple sclerosis, cardiovascular disease, hemodialysis patients, cancer patients, and hypertension.
Discussion and

Due to the effectiveness of progressive muscle relaxation in reducing and controlling stress and anxiety in various diseases, it is recommended that nurses use this simple, uncomplicated, inexpensive, and effective non-pharmacological intervention.